Coal Mining

Coal Mining. . Bituminous coal had been discovered in what is now Allegany County before the French and Indian War. Although farmers worked small individual diggings prior to the Nineteenth Century, it would not be until about 1820 that coal obtained some degree of commercial importance. This early 1900s postcard view, with the year 1908 engraved above the cement portal mine opening, is of a Frostburg area coal mine at Carlos Junction. Early coal mining was done by pick and shovel. As depicted here, horses and mules pulled the hand loaded trams or wagons from the mines to the railroad for shipment east. In 1906 Maryland would reach a record high of 6,436 miners, with coal production reaching 5.5 million tons the following year. Among the nation's largest producers of bituminous coal was Frostburg's famous Consolidation Coal Company., It was Consolidation's Frostburg area coal mines and Maryland steam coal that supplies the Cunard Steamship Line, and was also the preferred coal of the United States Navy because of its "smokeless" qualities. Consolidation coal was shipped worldwide and in 1898 Frostburg area mines also provided the blacksmithing coal for the Klondike gold fields of the Canadian Yukon., [text with the postcard image] From the collection of Albert and Angela Feldstein.